‘Graphic’ scene in Jennifer Lopez’s new film defended after it’s branded ‘too much’

Jennifer Lopez's new film Office Romance has sent social media into overdrive after one scene left viewers in shock.

The rom-com has attracted attention on social media because of J-Lo’s chemistry with her co-star and the film’s co-screenwriter Brett Goldstein. There were also rumours that the pair were secretly dating but it turns out they’re just friends.

Starring Goldstein, Lopez, as well as Betty Gilpin, Jodie Whittaker, Edward James Olmos, and Bradley Whitford, the Netflix movie focuses on the CEO of an airline who falls for her new lawyer on a trip away.

It’s had middling reviews from critics but a warm reception from fans, but the big talking point at the moment is a scene in which Betty Gilpin’s character Sydney gives birth in graphic detail.

Throughout Office Romance, Sydney refuses to stop working despite her late-stage pregnancy, eventually giving birth on a table at the office helped by Daniel (Goldstein) and Jackie (Lopez).

Gilpin said that she was ‘pretty freaked out’ when she first saw the prosthetic vagina made for the scene. Speaking to Variety, she revealed: “I had a nervous breakdown and then I was like, ‘Oh, but I’ll be holding the ultimate working mom’s hand, Jennifer Lopez, so what could go wrong?’”

The birthing scene has divided viewers (Netflix)

Viewers were caught off guard by the scene and while giving birth is a natural part of life, not everyone appears to have been expecting it within a rom-com.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I don’t think a full graphic uncensored birthing scene was one of them,” said one viewer in response to the film.

A second social media user declared: “That birth scene in office romance was completely unnecessary.”

Some fans loved it, with one viewer on X stating: “The childbirth delivery of the executive assistant at the office was my highlight.”

Another response to the scene read: “Everyone complaining about the birth scene in Office Romance — y’all you should be so lucky as to have that be your birth experience.”

Betty Gilpin’s character Sydney gives birth in graphic detail (Netflix)

A viewer said the scene was realistic: “The birth scene in office romance is the realest I have ever seen in a movie. What the hell.”

“This scene was so insane, lmao,” an X user wrote. “Sydney refused to push until they admitted they were in love with each other. No way she gave birth like that.”

Gilpin explained how it worked, stating that her real legs were below a table, adding that she had ‘fake prosthetic legs’.

“A puppeteer was standing at my real legs pushing an animatronic baby out of my prosthetic vagina, and it made it sound like [Gilpin makes a popping sound]… It was insane,” she revealed to Variety.

“The saddest part was when the scene was over and everybody but the puppeteers stayed in the room because the only way to reset was to go under and pull the fake placenta — I think the placenta is not in the movie anymore – but reach up through the prosthetic vagina that I am still zipped into, pull the placenta back and take the umbilical cord and pull it back and then pull the baby back through, and then it was time to do it again.”